Showing posts with the label Ireland

The World's Deepest Submarine Rescue

Jun 23, 2023

More than eighty hours after the Titan submersible lost contact with its surface ship while on a dive to explore the wreck of the Titanic a...

Charles Boycott: The Man Who Became a Verb

Jan 12, 2023

The act of boycotting an organization or a person dates back to centuries, but the word “boycott” itself is relatively new. It entered Engli...

The Dublin Whiskey Fire of 1875

Aug 23, 2022

On June 18, 1875, a fire broke out on Chamber Street in the Liberties neighborhood of Dublin, Ireland. The exact cause of the fire remains u...

The Round Towers of Ireland

Jun 8, 2022

A unique feature of the Irish landscape are its free-standing round towers or Cloigtheach , which literally means “bell house”. As their nam...

Before Pumpkins People Carved Turnips on Halloween

Nov 18, 2021

The yearly Halloween tradition of carving pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns was originally an Irish ritual, but instead of pumpkins, the folks a...

The Lartigue Monorail of Listowel

Jun 25, 2021

A small heritage market town called Listowel in County Kerry, Ireland, is home to one of the strangest monorail system ever built. Instead o...

Turlough: Ireland’s Disappearing Lakes

Sep 2, 2020

Many lakes whose existence depends wholly on rainwater runoffs are seasonal. The phenomenon is not particularly mysterious—the lake forms wh...

Slip Coach: Trains That Split

Aug 24, 2020

In the middle of the 19th century, British railway engineers realized that journey times could be appreciably shortened if trains didn’t hav...

The Healing Soil of Boho

Jun 11, 2020

In the Boho highlands of West Fermanagh Scarplands in Northern Ireland, there is a longstanding belief that the soil from the local churchya...

Crannogs: Neolithic-Era Artificial Islands

Jul 23, 2019

The Neolithic people of Great Britain were prolific builders. Just look at the British Isles—they are studded with countless ancient megalit...